Group 1 Crew has created sparks with their upbeat, accessible hip hop-styled tunes over the past five years, creating a career that burst into flame with 2010's Outta Space Love. The band's infectious energy on stage and the hard-hitting truths embedded in each song's catchy hooks have earned them a strong fanbase and a solid reputation.

They released their fourth studio effort Fearless on September 10, 2012. NRT's Bill Lurwick caught up with Blanca and Manwell about the life experiences that shaped the album, some solid guest vocalists, and the explosive success of their number 1 single “He Said.”

I don't know who wants to tackle this question, but it’s been a pretty adventurous past two years for you guys. Is that a correct assessment?

Yes. Definitely correct.

Blanca, your father went home to be with the Lord, and you guys are also have one less member. How did that affect you?

My father passed away in November of last year. He was 55 years old and passed away from cancer in his liver, so it was a very unexpected thing and very shocking and hard for me and my family. He was a man of God, and he was definitely a big influence in my life.

I thank him a lot for the relationship I have with the Lord, and how he was able to play a part in that for me. I definitely know he’s in a better place. It’s sometimes a hard thing to deal with, but I’m very, very proud of the man he was.

How did that play into the writing process?

Honestly I think it added a little bit more passion and realness to my life in general, which in turn plays out in your music. With Group 1, everything we write comes from our life, things that happen to us.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to write songs about people passing away, but it’s just that with every song that we do write, there is this realness and this edge that came out on this record because we wanted to make it from everything that we had experienced in the last year.

There was just so much that we wanted to speak about on this last record.

Manwell, your third member Pablo has gone onto other things. How is being a duo working out for you guys?

It’s good. Pablo is doing his thing in Orlando with his wife and they’re happy. I really think it was a great thing for both parties. They’re enjoying the Orlando life and being together for the first year of marriage, and we’re going on confident in what the Lord has called us to do.

It was a sad and happy parting. There wasn’t animosity or negativity. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. We just, again, used it to fuel the next season of what God’s doing. It’s been awesome. It’s been, like I said, a happy/sad thing.

I’ve got to ask. The label came to you and said, “We’ve got this song and we want Chris August to join you on it.” How did you guys feel about that when they approached you with the song “He Said?”

Actually it was the reverse. We approached the label and said, “We want Chris on it.” We’re good friends. We’re label mates, but we’ve been able to build the relationship being on the road and seeing each other at festivals and things like that.

We knew Chris to be such an amazing singer, and he has so much soul. He’s a fan of Group 1 Crew and we’re a fan of him. We made it happen.

Talk about this song. Where did the writing come from? Did Chris help out with the writing too?

Chris just came through on the last minute, literally. He had a day off and we’d already written the song, but we thought that the second verse would really be complimented by his vocal. It was written with me, Blanca, Ben Glover, and David Garcia in Nashville.

It was like most songs. It felt organic. It took an afternoon to write. We kind of perfected it the next day and just felt good about it. It felt that big at the time to Ben Glover and David Garcia. They really thought they had something good. We were just rolling with it, because dipping into a new market or new format for us was like new water.

The next single going to radio is “His Kind of Love.” Give us the background on that song. What does that mean, “His Kind of Love?”

We hooked up with the exact same team that did “He Said.” It was just an attempt to write a song purely based on the Lord’s love. It wasn’t deep in the sense of we weren’t trying to search out new theological truths. It was more like, “let’s just sit in a room and think about the Lord’s love.”

From that session of just meditating, let’s right in that atmosphere, in that place. It was originally called “This Kind of Love,” but Ben Glover thought we should drop the T and leave it “His Kind of Love.” It was a great song.

Blanca, Manwell mentioned a decidedly different song on this project from Outta Space Love or anything else we’ve heard from Group 1 Crew. You have Flame joining you for a track on the record called “Darkest Valley.”

“Darkest Valley,” believe it or not, is such a hard track. I love it. It’s one of my favorites on the album. I think it’s completely just truth in a song. You just hear raw emotion and Manwell has an incredible rap.

We were so excited to have Flame on it. We had the song being tossed around to different artists, trying to figure out who was going to be the right fit for the song. We sent it to Flame’s camp, and he got a hold of the song and really felt inspired by it and wanted to be a part of it.

It came together like that. I still to this day have not had the opportunity to meet Flame in person, but I’ve gotten to hear his rap and it’s one of my favorite parts in the song.

Manwell, you guys are heading out on the Girls of Grace tour here coming up pretty quick. Is there a song that you guys are going to do off the new project to really invite a lot of crowd interaction? Do you have a particular selection that’s going to make that happen?

All of them.

We have a bunch of songs. We’ve got a lot of tours even before that. We’ve got a tour with Brit Nicole that we’re doing in October, and in November we’ll be out in Winter Jam West Coast.

You guys are busy. Everybody is married now too.

Yes. Me for a year and five months. Blanca going on three years.

That’s definitely a different dynamic. What exciting stuff. Looking forward to Fearless. Thanks for spending time with us at New Release Tuesday.

Thank you.